Technically Untechnical Rantings

I guess you could say this is our 'blog section', but seeing as how we are all too cool for blogs, I prefer to call this the 'FD Diary Page.'

You Can't Trust Anyone - Written by Plink 12/20/04

So as I was sitting, waiting for the bus, a very unusual thing happened. The man next to me spontaneously exploded. It was unnerving. I'm not sure if it was his arm or leg that hit me, out of the body parts turned projectiles. All I know, is that I wished it hadn't. Having someone else’s blood on you will change your life. I know it changed mine. I now shower twice a week.

Jokes aside, I'm relieved the story I'm telling you is actually what I did during a recent romp through GTA:SA. With the game complete, there’s pretty much no limit to what you can do. (kill) As a side note, I will mention that the guy who spontaneously exploded, did not actually spontaneously explode. In other words, he exploded, but not spontaneously. The claymore mine that was placed next to him was the real source of his disintegration. Which brings me to my next point. Violence in videogames does not affect people in any way, nor does it encourage it. My valid points, mentioned above, thoroughly prove this.

Nonsensical - Written by Juiceman 12/13/04

Some friends and I got together today to practice some Rainbow Six 3 for an upcoming LAN party. We’re hoping to get a tournament going there. Swag is offered up as prizes, and we like swag, so we want to smoke the competition. Let me take you back in time. Back to Infernalan April 2004. We engaged in some friendly matches against 5 members of a clan (their name escapes me, I’m old, my brain hurts, I have difficulty remembering what I did last week, etc). These peeps claimed to be #7 in the nation, and I think they were telling us the truth. They had every spawn location memorized in Raven Shield. On a few maps, they would kill us within the first couple of minutes. Yeah we got moped. And it hurt. It hurt bad.

This was one of my first experiences playing against a woman that was into squad games. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but she earned my respect real fast. She knew how to talk smack too. Yeah my ego was bruised more than once. Since then, I’ve tried to show the same respect to all the other women I have played. Well, except for the Fragdolls. They have yet to earn it ;). Anyways, we’ve been pestering this clan to return to the next Infernalan in hopes for some redemption. However, I doubt the 2-3 days worth of practice we’ll be getting beforehand will do us any good compared to their skills. Yeah we suck, but it’ll still be a blast.

I have the worst sense of direction. After leaving my friends place, I took a wrong turn. So I ended up on this barely maintained road that led back to the main road. This road met the main road at a high angle. I was too busy being upset about the wrong turn, so I didn’t pay any attention to the angle. I scraped the front end of my car on the pavement. Man I am pissed. Really pissed. Super pissed. You don’t understand just how pissed I am. Now, I’m sure that most of you people probably could care less about that. But I could really care less about your fricken opinion about the love I have for my car. I love it *almost* as much as I love my girlfriend. I would say that I love it more, but she might read this. My girlfriend on the other hand, isn’t too happy about my feelings for my car. Or the feelings I have for Ghost Recon 2. One of these days, I’m going to come home to find my XBox, all of my games, and all of my clothes on fire on the hood of my car. I just know it.

As a preventative measure, I’ve been buying her some video games of her own. PC games mind you. I can’t have her eating up my precious XBox time She needed something that would keep her busy. Ok, I needed something that would keep her busy so I could play XBox without any repercussions. So, I bought her the Sims. A video game *any* woman would love. It’s got everything a woman needs. Shoes. Clothes. Hairstyles. Love interests. Home decoration. Kitchen fires. Hell, If you could fix up a fast car and make your sim play XBox, I’d probably play it. But alas, the game is not for me. For fun, she’s created a sim that’s a total slut. And she’s getting her to cheat on her boyfriend. She loves it. That scares me.

Bungie = Stealers - Written by Plink 12/07/04

They stole our dignity, our freedom and our pajamas. (which includes our last box of Christmas oranges) I'm too emotionally scarred to type anything else.

ATI: "Pass the TP" - Written by Shimpy D 12/03/04

Ok, so to start out I will fill you all in with a little background on the embarrassing history of the X800XT-PE and its 850 counterpart. Long ago in early 2004 ATI released their flagship X800 series. Laying their family jewels out on the table they brought with it the Platinum Edition.

All the reviewers got their copies as ATI fanboys ran around like a bunch of cowboys shootin’ up the lot of Indians (nVIDIA) with their big shiny guns. Back to reality, Company 'A' orders 'X' number of these cards, but as the limit of 'T' approached infinity, these cards were no where in sight. Fast-forward to today. ATI launches the X850XT-PE!

The bottom line is that this card is EXACTLY the same as the X800XT-PE but is overclocked soooo slightly that most benchmarking applications won’t give a hoot whether or not you spent the extra green on the 850. The X850XT-PE is a poor marketing excuse to save ATI’s bum from getting singed from the torches and pitchforks of consumers and the media.